Now reading...

[medjuck]

1 hour ago, Simon8 said:

Reissued by NYRB, coming out next week. Haven't read it yet: how is it ?

 

Not to be trusted for historical accuracy but great fun. 

[Larry Kart]

On February 19, 2016 at 11:21 AM, Jazzjet said:

I've just finished Anthony Powell's 12 volume masterpiece, 'A Dance To The Music Of Time', my equivalent of tackling 'War And Peace'. It's a social chronicle of British middle and upper class life between the late 1920s and the late 1960s. Parallels include the novels of Evelyn Waugh and Henry Green and even Proust, although Powell is much less introspective. Part of the fun is identifying the real life models on whom the fictional characters are based. These include George Orwell, Lord Beaverbrook, John Galsworthy and many others. I can now look forward to the Channel 4 late 90s TV adaptation which attempted to squeeze it all into four 2-hour episodes.

My next challenge is to read C.P. Snow's 'Strangers and Brothers' sequence from the beginning (I've read a few novels, eg 'The Masters' but never the whole thing). Only 9 novels so it should be a piece of cake!

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Powellian, have read the entire sequence at least twice, favorite individual volumes more than that, actually interviewed Powell back in the '80s (a delightful experience), and am even, Heaven help me, a member of the Anthony Powell Society, which is worth joining  if you're interested (it's easy and there's an Organissmo-like board) because, as one might expect, a lot of people who know a lot about Powell's work spend time there. That said, neither George Orwell, nor Lord Beaverbrook, nor John Galsworthy are models for any of Powell's characters. I assume you feel that Lord Beaverbrook = Sir Magnus Donners and John Galsworthy = St. John Clarke (I have no idea who you think is modeled on Orwell, certainly not Warminster/Erridge or Quiggin either). In any case, Donners and Beaverbrook are far apart (the former an industrialist-magnate who is fairly secretive about his affairs, the latter the most prominent British press baron of his time and a man who fed upon publicity), while the mostly forgotten novelist Hugh Walpole and another mostly forgotten litterateur Logan Pearsall Smith (he was of American parentage, lived in England,  and wrote a good many aphorisms) would be much closer to St. John Clarke than Galsworthy was. Also, Sillery is not at all modeled on C.M. Bowra, a mistake that many have made. The closest jobs of character modeling I can think of in "Dance," would be composer-conductor-author Constant Lambert as the model for Hugh Moreland and Barbara Skelton (ex-wife of Cyril Connolly, former mistress of King Farouk, with a whole lot more to her credit or discredit) as the model for Pamela Flitton. Field Marshall Montgomery and Lord Alanbrooke of course appear as themselves, and Isobel Jenkins seems to be very close to Powell's own wife, Violet.  Alick Dru, pioneering translator-advocate of Kierkegaard among other things, is to a fair degree the model for Pennistone. Leftist publisher Victor Gollancz  is close to the model for Howard Craggs. Somewhat rackety American publisher Donald Friede is close to the model for Louis Glober.  Ralph Barnby shares several traits with Powell's longtime friend Adrian Daintry -- both were painters and womanizers in the top class. One real-life exchange between Powell and Daintry was transferred directly into an exchange between Jenkins and Barnby. Powell once asked Daintry -- whose experiences with women  both in number and variety far exceeded those of Powell, and indeed those of most men -- whether he agreed that a good many women were surprisingly unsensual. "Do you know," Daintry replied, "I've never noticed."

P.S. If you can find a copy, Hillary Spurling's "Invitation to the Dance: A Guide to Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time," is a great and often entertaining resource.

[A Lark Ascending]

10 hours ago, medjuck said:

Not to be trusted for historical accuracy but great fun. 

I enjoyed that one many years ago. 

[Jazzjet]

10 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Powellian, have read the entire sequence at least twice, favorite individual volumes more than that, actually interviewed Powell back in the '80s (a delightful experience), and am even, Heaven help me, a member of the Anthony Powell Society, which is worth joining  if you're interested (it's easy and there's an Organissmo-like board) because, as one might expect, a lot of people who know a lot about Powell's work spend time there. That said, neither George Orwell, nor Lord Beaverbrook, nor John Galsworthy are models for any of Powell's characters. I assume you feel that Lord Beaverbrook = Sir Magnus Donners and John Galsworthy = St. John Clarke (I have no idea who you think is modeled on Orwell, certainly not Warminster/Erridge or Quiggin either). In any case, Donners and Beaverbrook are far apart (the former an industrialist-magnate who is fairly secretive about his affairs, the latter the most prominent British press baron of his time and a man who fed upon publicity), while the mostly forgotten novelist Hugh Walpole and another mostly forgotten litterateur Logan Pearsall Smith (he was of American parentage, lived in England,  and wrote a good many aphorisms) would be much closer to St. John Clarke than Galsworthy was. Also, Sillery is not at all modeled on C.M. Bowra, a mistake that many have made. The closest jobs of character modeling I can think of in "Dance," would be composer-conductor-author Constant Lambert as the model for Hugh Moreland and Barbara Skelton (ex-wife of Cyril Connolly, former mistress of King Farouk, with a whole lot more to her credit or discredit) as the model for Pamela Flitton. Field Marshall Montgomery and Lord Alanbrooke of course appear as themselves, and Isobel Jenkins seems to be very close to Powell's own wife, Violet.  Alick Dru, pioneering translator-advocate of Kierkegaard among other things, is to a fair degree the model for Pennistone. Leftist publisher Victor Gollancz  is close to the model for Howard Craggs. Somewhat rackety American publisher Donald Friede is close to the model for Louis Glober.  Ralph Barnby shares several traits with Powell's longtime friend Adrian Daintry -- both were painters and womanizers in the top class. One real-life exchange between Powell and Daintry was transferred directly into an exchange between Jenkins and Barnby. Powell once asked Daintry -- whose experiences with women  both in number and variety far exceeded those of Powell, and indeed those of most men -- whether he agreed that a good many women were surprisingly unsensual. "Do you know," Daintry replied, "I've never noticed."

P.S. If you can find a copy, Hillary Spurling's "Invitation to the Dance: A Guide to Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time," is a great and often entertaining resource.

Good to hear from a fellow fan, Larry. My comments on character models was actually based on a page of the Anthony Powell site, eg George Orwell as Erridge/Lord Warmisnster, St. John Clarke as John Galsworthy etc. However, I'm sure that any comparisons are far more nuanced than that. Dr Trelawney is supposed to be based on Alesteir Crowley which I find unlikely. Hugh Walpole is an interesting possibility for St John Clarke. As you say he's largely forgotten figure today although I've recently got hold of some of his books which I haven't read for ages and of course his 'Rogue Herries' is a great companion if you ever visit the Lake District. Thanks for the tip about Hilary Spurling's book. Here's the site :

Models for characters in Anthony Powell's Dance To The Music Of Time

[Larry Kart]

4 hours ago, Jazzjet said:

Good to hear from a fellow fan, Larry. My comments on character models was actually based on a page of the Anthony Powell site, eg George Orwell as Erridge/Lord Warmisnster, St. John Clarke as John Galsworthy etc. However, I'm sure that any comparisons are far more nuanced than that. Dr Trelawney is supposed to be based on Alesteir Crowley which I find unlikely. Hugh Walpole is an interesting possibility for St John Clarke. As you say he's largely forgotten figure today although I've recently got hold of some of his books which I haven't read for ages and of course his 'Rogue Herries' is a great companion if you ever visit the Lake District. Thanks for the tip about Hilary Spurling's book. Here's the site :

Models for characters in Anthony Powell's Dance To The Music Of Time

The two men who assembled that list of models are major Powellians, but I still don't like Galsworthy for St. John Clarke. Dismissible though Galsworthy's fiction might be, it's not in a class of moldy banality with St. John Clarke's. Also, I'm not aware of Galsworthy becoming a voguish Left-winger, as St. John Clarke does. Further, the  merry-go-round where St. John Clarke dumps his assistant Mark Members  and replaces him with Quiggin, who is eventually supplanted by Guggenbuhl, is IIRC taken fairly directly from stuff that happened with Logan Pearsall Smith and his assistants. Finally, in the time period where St. John Clarke figures prominently in "Dance," he is a distinctly outmoded figure, not only in literary circles but also with the general novel-buying public; Galsworthy in the '30s had not yet been relegated to the dustbin I don't believe, not in the second category. 

Orwell disguising himself as a tramp in order to explore "conditions" does rhyme with one bit of Warminster/Erridge's behavior, but that's the only point of resemblance I can see.  Orwell of course did many adventurous things in his life, wrote a great amount that was worthy and influential; Warminster does little but be cranky according to his own basically crabbed reclusive lights and essentially has an effect only on his relatives. Also, Powell and Orwell became fairly close friends; there's a wonderful portrait of him in Powell's memoirs.

Forget to mention that, as the list makers say, X. Trapnel is modeled on Julian McLaren Ross.

I thought that Crowley and Trelawney were a pretty close fit. When Powell was a young man in publishing, he met a by then decrepit and semi-mad Crowley and found him immensely creepy. He writes of the encounter in the memoirs.

[Jazzjet]

18 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

The two men who assembled that list of models are major Powellians, but I still don't like Galsworthy for St. John Clarke. Dismissible though Galsworthy's fiction might be, it's not in a class of moldy banality with St. John Clarke's. Also, I'm not aware of Galsworthy becoming a voguish Left-winger, as St. John Clarke does. Further, the  merry-go-round where St. John Clarke dumps his assistant Mark Members  and replaces him with Quiggin, who is eventually supplanted by Guggenbuhl, is IIRC taken fairly directly from stuff that happened with Logan Pearsall Smith and his assistants. Finally, in the time period where St. John Clarke figures prominently in "Dance," he is a distinctly outmoded figure, not only in literary circles but also with the general novel-buying public; Galsworthy in the '30s had not yet been relegated to the dustbin I don't believe, not in the second category. 

Orwell disguising himself as a tramp in order to explore "conditions" does rhyme with one bit of Warminster/Erridge's behavior, but that's the only point of resemblance I can see.  Orwell of course did many adventurous things in his life, wrote a great amount that was worthy and influential; Warminster does little but be cranky according to his own basically crabbed reclusive lights and essentially has an effect only on his relatives. Also, Powell and Orwell became fairly close friends; there's a wonderful portrait of him in Powell's memoirs.

Forget to mention that, as the list makers say, X. Trapnel is modeled on Julian McLaren Ross.

I thought that Crowley and Trelawney were a pretty close fit. When Powell was a young man in publishing, he met a by then decrepit and semi-mad Crowley and found him immensely creepy. He writes of the encounter in the memoirs.

The only other thing in the Erridge/Orwell comparison is the trip to the Spanish Civil War which both Erridge and Orwell made. I'm not too sure about the Crowley/ Trelawney comparison. Crowley was a much more evil and dangerous personality than Trelawney seems to be. On the general point of these character models I'm sure the inspiration that Powell took was a lot more nuanced than it appears with parts of the characters and personalities known to Powell combined to form the characters in the novels. Didn't Powell say something about fiction invoking a higher truth than biography?

Thanks again for the Hilary Spurling recommendation by the way. I managed to get hold of a cheap used copy via Amazon.

[BillF]

Returned to Bellow after a gap of several decades. Used to be a big fan of Bellow's in my twenties. Now see this one as flawed, but with a magnificent ending. Have taken more off the bookshelf for future reading.

[alankin]

Donald E. Westlake as Richard Stark – Lemons Never Lie (Hard Case Crime) — Grofield novel

 

[Larry Kart]

I love Westlake's Richard Stark novels, have read them all. (Can't deny Westlake's overall expertise, but I have no taste for the more whimsical sort of crime novels that he wrote under his own name.) I believe that "Lemons Never Lie" was my first Stark, which in retrospect felt like a somewhat odd point of entrance because it's essentially a Grofield novel.

[alankin]

Yeah, the Grofield novels tend to be a bit less, um, stark than the Parker novels.

[Larry Kart]

34 minutes ago, alankin said:

Yeah, the Grofield novels tend to be a bit less, um, stark than the Parker novels.

Doesn't Parker come in toward the end of "Lemons Don't Lie"? Also, what happens to Grofield eventually in one of the later Parker novels hit me hard. What a nice character Grofield is, kind of a link to the tone of Westlake's Bernie the  burgular books.

Oops -- Bernie the burgular is a Lawrence Block creation. What I meant was Westlake's Dortmunder novels.

[jazzbo]

I myself can't answer those questions as I've been reading the Stark novels sequentially from the beginning and am finishing up "The Dame" right now. After the Parker novels the Grofield novels are fun but like a diet meal rather than a full calorie delight.

[medjuck]

40 minutes ago, Larry Kart said:

Doesn't Parker come in toward the end of "Lemons Don't Lie"? Also, what happens to Grofield eventually in one of the later Parker novels hit me hard. What a nice character Grofield is, kind of a link to the tone of Westlake's Bernie the  burgular books.

Oops -- Bernie the burgular is a Lawrence Block creation. What I meant was Westlake's Dortmunder novels.

Isn't there a novel where Dortmunder reads a Richard Stark novel and tries to imitate Parker?

[Larry Kart]

30 minutes ago, medjuck said:

Isn't there a novel where Dortmunder reads a Richard Stark novel and tries to imitate Parker?

I believe I've heard of that, though I haven't read much Dortmunder.

Westlake liked to set himself odd challenges as a writer. One of my favorites comes in the Parker novel "Ask the Parrot," where an entire chapter is told from the point of view of that creature. Reading it, I had no doubt that this is what a parrot -- or better, that particular parrot -- would be thinking at that point. And it's not just a writerly trick; the novel might not work unless we knew what that parrot was thinking.

[paul secor]

Alec Guinness: A Positively Final Appearance

I didn't want this one to end, though all things must, and his life ended shortly after writing this book.

[alankin]

5 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Doesn't Parker come in toward the end of "Lemons Don't Lie"? Also, what happens to Grofield eventually in one of the later Parker novels hit me hard. What a nice character Grofield is, kind of a link to the tone of Westlake's Bernie the  burglar books.

Oops -- Bernie the burglar is a Lawrence Block creation. What I meant was Westlake's Dortmunder novels.

Yeah, there is an intersection between Grofield and Parker in a couple Parker books.  Both the Parker book Slayground and the Grofield book The Blackbird start with the same botched robbery in chapter one of each book.   The books then tells the separate stories of what happens to each character after the get away from the robbery scene.  Maybe that was another challenge.

And  the first Dortmunder book, The Hot Rock, was originally supposed to be a Parker book, but the story veered off in a more comic direction and Westlake decided to go along for the ride, as it were.

5 hours ago, medjuck said:

Isn't there a novel where Dortmunder reads a Richard Stark novel and tries to imitate Parker?

Yes, "Jimmy the Kid" - the third Dortmunder book which is one of the few I haven't read yet.

[ejp626]

I just finished Mukherjee's Miss New India, which is probably best described as Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick in Bangalore with the additional twist that the main character is female.  The secondary characters are all more interesting that the main character.  (One could easily say the same thing for most of Dickens' novels that star a juvenile lead.)

I'm partway through Alain Mabanckou's Broken Glass.  It's short, so I'll probably be done with it tomorrow.  It's basically a bar patron writing down the stories of a seedy bar in the Congo.  It's not bad.  There is a scene early on that seemed inspired by Monty Python's Splunge sketch.

After this Lem's Solaris.  I'm quite interested to see what I make of this.  I've seen the two film versions but know that the book is a bit different.

 

[jlhoots]

Bruce DeSilva: A Scourge Of Vipers

[crisp]

 

Just finished this 1920s mystery. Very good. Pretty easy to work out whodunnit but the howdunnit was complex and cleverly done. I'm surprised Philip MacDonald hasn't been reprinted sooner -- he was an interesting writer (wrote screenplays in Hollywood including Rebecca) and on the strength of this a very good one; deft and readable. One of the best in the new Detective Club series of vintage reprints.

[HutchFan]

I'm reading Edward N. Meyer's biography of Dick Wellstood, Giant Strides. 

Wellstood was an interesting, contradictory man.

[ejp626]

On ‎25‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 10:38 AM, ejp626 said:

After this Lem's Solaris.  I'm quite interested to see what I make of this.  I've seen the two film versions but know that the book is a bit different.

 

I'm enjoying this, though I am spending a lot of time thinking back to the film versions.  (This probably confirms my general feeling that if you plan to watch the film and read the book, it is better to read the book first.  Not always possible of course.)  The physics, such as they are, seem completely absurd to me.  I don't care how intelligent this Solaris thing is, it can't completely overcome gravity and change the planet's orbit.  It simply wouldn't have the mass to do it.  (A minor point overall.)

After this Johnson's Oxherding Tale

and Brian Moore's The Luck of Ginger Coffey.

Edited February 29, 2016 by ejp626

[jlhoots]

Adam Johnson: Fortune Smiles

[A Lark Ascending]

Excellent book, tracing the endless tension between liberty and security. Focuses on the intelligence role of the FBI rather than crime fighting. Weiner writes in a very plain style - short bullet-like sentences, rather than flowing argument, though by his choice of information you are left in no doubt to his opinion (a fine balance but security has generally won the day). The first half covering the Hoover era with all his underhand wire taps and break ins really made me think about the legislation going on at present in the UK to extend surveillance.

Read his book on the CIA a while back. This is just as good.    

[jazzbo]

Very interesting.

[HutchFan]

On 2/29/2016 at 10:39 AM, ejp626 said:

and Brian Moore's The Luck of Ginger Coffey.

BIG thumbs up for Brian Moore.  

Haven't read that one yet. What do you think?